Once frost turns your flower garden brown, the instinct is understandable: grab the pruners, cut everything to the ground, bag the debris, and make the yard look tidy again. But what looks like a collection of dead stems to you may look very different to a bee, butterfly, bird, or other creature preparing for winter. Increasingly, gardeners are deliberately leaving dead flower stems instead of completing a spotless fall cleanup. The practice costs nothing, eliminates some autumn yard work, and can preserve valuable habitat until warmer weather returns. Before cutting every brown perennial to the ground this fall, take a closer look at what those seemingly ugly stems may still be doing.
